Doped Out In The Desert
by Nate The Ape
Summary: What if Toph drank the cactus juice along with Sokka? Twice the wackiness ensues!
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, hey, everyone. While I haven't watched all the episodes of A:TLA as yet, I've still seen quite a few, all of which contain some extremely funny moments. Now, we Avatar fans all seem to agree that perhaps the most hilarious scene in the series is when Sokka completely trips out on cactus juice.**

**For this fic, I couldn't resist examining what might happen if another of my favorite characters imbibed with him...**

**Each chapter will roughly correspond to a scene in "The Desert."**

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><p>(<em>Would you like to be happy! Well, I mean <em>_**really **__happy!/...And everybody thinks I'm high and I am._) My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, _The Devil Does Drugs_.

Toph was in a state of utter misery as she trailed Sokka and Katara across the burning sand of the Si Wong Desert. The soles of her feet had learned to cope with pain long ago, but in the glaring heat, every step still felt like she was treading on hot wax. Although she stoically refused to complain, the Earthbender would've given anything for a pair of sandals.

Sweat dripped and clotted on her skin and soaked into the fabric of her tunic, stinging her sightless eyeballs. Her shorter legs made it a trial to keep pace with the Waterbender siblings, and the exposed skin of her neck and face felt like it had been rubbed raw with a file from sunburn.

She also felt miserable inside. First of all, the shifting, granular, muffling sand she strode across was strange, unfamiliar. It muffled and masked any vibrations she sent or received through the substrate, forcing her to rely far more on her sense of hearing. For Toph, it was the equivalent of attempting to find one's way in a forest with only starlight to rely on.

And then there was Aang. He'd been so furious at her for allowing the desert nomads to abduct Appa, his best friend and their mode of transportation! She'd been trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, desperately trying to keep the sinking library up, to buy vital time for her new friends. There'd been only so much she could do, but the fact still remained that the responsibility for Appa's loss squarely rested on her shoulders. His comment that she'd never liked the bison deeply hurt, and made her feel even more terrible.

Now Aang had stormed off in an enraged huff to soar around in a desperate search for his flying bison. Secretly, Toph was scared that he might well just leave them forever, or at least her, to whatever dreadful fate awaited them in this dreadful hell. She hoped he either found Appa or some other kind of help soon.

In this state, she noticed Sokka's labored panting too late, her drooping forehead and breasts colliding with his shoulders and back.

"Can't you watch where-" he snapped in irritation as she heard his heels crunch in the sand while he half-turned.

"No," she responded crossly. How dumb and insensitive could he be?

"Right. Sorry," he apologized, his right shoulder pressed against her.

From maybe a zhang away came Katara's voice, urging "Come on guys. We've got to stick together."

As Sokka tried to pull away, Toph was startled to feel her tunic start to be pulled with it. It was sweatier than she'd thought. She felt Sokka then put his muscular hands on her flank and firmly push her away as she reciprocated, saying dryly, "If I sweat anymore, I don't think sticking together will be a problem."

After separating them with a quick, jerking shove to the Water Tribe warrior's face, her mouth feeling like cotton, Toph requested, "Katara, can I have some water?"

"Okay, but we have to conserve it."

A sloshing, liquid sound, and she felt a manipulated globe of water touch her cracking lips. It tasted like nasty, low-grade tea, but she gratefully drank it anyhow. Beggars couldn't be choosers.

"We're drinking your bending water?" Sokka asked as the realization hit him. "You used this on the swamp guy! Blegh!" he exclaimed in disgust.

"It does taste kind of swampy," she agreed, nonetheless happy to have had any water at all as Momo himself made a disgusted purr.

"I'm sorry, it's all we have," Katara responded matter-of-factly.

"Not anymore!" her brother suddenly exclaimed. "Look!"

Despite being blind as one of her badger-mole teachers, (and it _did _annoy her to no end whenever some clod shouted that in her presence) Toph instinctively turned to face in the direction she could sense Sokka was focused in anyhow.

She then heard his feet crunching sand underfoot, then a wet slash with his sword.

"Sokka, wait!" his sister exclaimed then in a half-terrified tone, as Toph suddenly felt the older girl's hand clamp onto her wrist and dragging her along. "You shouldn't be eating strange plants!"

The Earthbender heard the young warrior and Momo greedily slurping at some sort of liquid as she was hauled forward, then another moist slash as he jubilantly proclaimed, "There's water trapped inside these!"

The words made Toph perk up like a lizard that has sighted a beetle. Water...

"I don't know," Katara said warily from just in front of her.

The rational part of Toph told her that joining Sokka in drinking the juice of an unknown plant was the equivalent of playing with fire. But she was also desperate. Katara's meager offering of water had taken the sword edge off her thirst, but hadn't fully satisfied it either by a long shot.

"I'm going to have some too," she said eagerly, striding forward.

Katara's hand then pressed against her chest, the Waterbender urging, "Toph don't. I know we're all thirsty, but you shouldn't be drinking liquid from some weird plant. I can always bend water out of a cloud or something."

"Out of my way Sugar Queen," Toph snapped back, firmly pushing Katara aside. "There's water here and I'm drinking it now!"

"Don't come crying to me if something bad happens to you," Katara warned.

As the Earthbender walked forward and then kneeled down, she said, "I'd like some too Sokka."

"Sure," he replied as he gently put something thorny and rounded in her cupped hands.

Immediately, she found the edge with her sensitive lips, tilted the bowl, and drank.

The liquid was refreshing, tasting a lot like the juice of a cucumber with a hint of melon.

"Thirst-quenching, isn't it," Sokka said happily.

Toph nodded. Then she heard the Water Tribe youth declare in the tone of a slightly drunken hawker, "Drink cactus juice! It'll quench you! Nothing's quenchier!"

Toph giggled in mirth. She reached up to wipe her sweaty forehead, flicking her long bangs to the side. Suddenly, it occurred to her that her bangs were the softest, most luxurious, sleekest thing she'd ever felt in her life! Grinning in pleasure at the sensation, she began to paw at them, letting them slip through her fingers as if they were fine silk.

"My hair feels so soft!" she said joyfully.

Then she heard music begin to swell up from the sand.

She quit reveling in the texture of her bangs and listened attentively to the song, head cocked. As she did, an amazing revelation came to her.

"He's so right!" she announced. "The little critters of nature really _don't _know that they're ugly!"

"Okay, I think both of you have had enough," Katara said dryly as she plucked the cactus from the Earthbender.

"Why do you sound like a rabbi-roo?" Toph asked as she stood up.

Her bellybutton was going to fall off soon, she realized. So naturally she stuck one of her thumbs into her abdomen and secured it with a satisfying _POP_!

"Who lit Toph on fire?" a bemused Sokka asked as he walked up to her.

"The sun did!" Toph beamed. "He wants to make me a Firebender too!"

With a resigned sigh, Katara, her voice slurred for some odd reason, said, "Why am I the only one with brains around here? I warned you two that drinking that stuff was a bad move!"

Feeling generous, Toph offered, "I'm going to clean all those crickets out of your hair when we stop for the night. Can't you hear them singing?"

The female gorilla goat made a disgusted snort and turned away, commanding, "Come on you two. We need to find Aang. And try to keep it together."

"Sure thing," Toph said cheerily as she fell into step. "After all, we female gorilla goats stick together!"

From behind her, as another song began to emanate from the endless marble floor they were traversing, the Earthbender heard Sokka ask, "How did we get out here in the middle of the ocean?"

Toph didn't really care. Caught up in the spirit of the music coming to her from another dimension, she gleefully crooned, "_I am the eggman/ they are the eggmen/ I am the walrus/ Koo-koo-a-joo-ca-koo-koo-ca-joo!_"

From up ahead, she could hear the talking ostrich horse give a sigh of helpless frustration.

To make conversation, she turned to Sokka and asked him, "Did you know that my mother's name is Poppy?"

Immediately, she heard him come to a halt. Shock infusing his voice, he gasped, "No. Way."

"Yes way," she giggled back for no reason.

"Get going!" Katara's voice lashed through the air.

"Your voice smells like cut grass," Toph mentioned as they got underway.

"Spirits help me."

"The Earth Kingdom-love it or leave it!" the Earthbender shouted patriotically.


	2. Chapter 2

**Before beginning Chapter 2, I just want to take a moment to thank my reviewers. You guys are great!**

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><p>For a while they walked over what Toph knew were great dunes of diamonds. They were of no practical use to them in this vast desert though, so she carried on.<p>

While she took care to stay close to Kata-what was her name?-a turtle spirit had made himself known to her, and the blind Earthbender was enjoying a deeply stimulating conversation with him in her head about whether roses or daffodils smelt the best.

Abruptly, she felt something cold and slimy, with whiskers on its face, slide over her feet.

"Ahh!" she shouted in horror-stricken shock, leaping up into the air as Katara and the turtle spirit both shouted, "What happened Toph?" in concern.

"A catfish touched me! It was slimy and gross!" she answered.

"Yeah. Out in the desert."

As they crested what the Earthbender felt to be another dune, she was suddenly lashed hard from behind by a great gale of wind, peppering her bare skin with sand grains.

Coming to a stop, Katara, her voice coming from slightly above her and smelling like fish, wondered in amazement, "What is that?" Her jaw made a sound like two sticks being clapped together with each syllable.

"What? What is what? Is the ice cream truck finally here now?" she requested hopefully, rotating her head in confusion.

From further down the dune, facing away from them, his voice filled with a tone of reverence and wonder, "It's a **giant **mushroom! Maybe it's friendly!"

"A giant mushroom? Awesome!" Toph shouted as the sparrakeets flew and chirped in tight circles around her head. "Let's go see it!" she begged Katara.

"NO," the Waterbender sharply replied. "We are _so_ not going chasing after figments of you guy's imagination! Let's just keep moving," she requested as Toph felt the other girl's fur-covered hand pluck at her wrist, leading her away again. "I hope Aang's okay," she softly added, her breath smelling like melted butter.

Disappointed, she heard Sokka exclaim "Friendly mushroom! Mushy giant friend!"

Turning over her shoulder, Toph commanded, "Keep away from that thing Snoozles! Don't you know that wherever there are giant mushrooms, there are giant ugly spiders running around too?"

"Spiders!" he yelled in horror before instantly rushing to their sides.

"Boy, I owe you one," he told her gratefully. "Thanks for warning me. I sure don't want to become no meal for no giant spider," he added.

"No problem," she sincerely replied as they walked over the great expanse of burlap.

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><p><strong>Chapter 3 coming soon, in which Aang drops in!<strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**More zanyness from tripping Toph in this 3rd chapter!**

**All song lyrics are the property of their respective owners, while Bryan and Mike own Avatar.**

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><p>As they walked in single file, Toph slipped into another important debate with herself, over whether the chicken or the egg came first. This profound philosophical matter was as yet unresolved as the sun began to slip below the horizon and the air grew cooler.<p>

There was a sudden whoosh of air then, and she felt a shadow briefly pass over her before hearing a soft impact about two zhang away that lightly sprayed her with sand grains. She knew it was Aang.

Katara stopped, and the blind Earthbender took the opportunity to rest at once, standing still and listening to the beautiful flute music washing off her brain.

She had a vague sense that Aang was sad as Katara went over to him and provided comfort.

"What's the difference? We won't survive without Appa. We all know it."

We won't survive. That was the same thing as saying they were good as dead.

At the thought, another song replaced the flute music. It was so cool the Earthbender just had to sing along!

Aang and Katara both jerked in surprise as she belted out, "_Dead I am the dog/ Hound of hell you cry/ Devil on your back/ I can never die!_"

"Okay, what in the spirit world happened to her?" Aang inquired wildly of Katara.

"Let's just say my brother chose the wrong plant to extract water from, and that Toph acted before she thought," the Waterbender said with an exasperated sigh. "I think it'll get out of their systems eventually though."

"_Dig through the ditches and burn through the witches/ I slam in the back of my Dragullaaa!_" Toph went on, grinning joyfully.

"Eventually is the operative word here," Katara added. "Anyway Aang, we can do this if we work together. Toph?"

"Life is a monkey," she calmly replied, faintly smiling.

"That's not an answer Toph," the Waterbender scolded. "Now _try _to get out of your drugged stupor for just a few moments and tell us if you can sense anything with your Earthbending skills."

Cool, she was paying attention to her! She didn't want it to stop either.

"Look what I can do Katara!" Toph announced, as she began to rub her belly and pat her head at the same time.

"Darn it Toph, tell us if you can _sense_ anything!" Aang yelled as she was staggered by a fierce gust of wind.

Shocked, the Earthbender obeyed, feeling and listening for any sign of solid rock, any sense of direction. Her mind felt even sharper, more aware and receptive than usual, but all the same she picked up nothing.

"As far as I can feel, we're trapped in a giant bowl of sand pudding. I've got nothing," she regretfully admitted. "I'm sure there's some _chocolate_ pudding around though," she added. "And we'll be okay if we just remember what the dormouse said."

"I'll take your findings on good faith," Katara sighed. "Sokka? Any ideas on how to find Ba Sing Se?"

Dreamily, he replied, "Why don't you ask the circle birds?"

"We should be asking the dormouse," Toph insisted. She knew it was the most practical way.

Silence then. It occurred to the Earthbender that her toes were the most fascinating thing ever, and she began to wiggle them, curl them in the sand, touch them with the other foot as she softly chuckled and drooled slightly.

Katara gave a sharp, frustrated "Ugh!" then announced, "We're going to get out of this desert, and we're going to do it together-even if half of us are drunk off their gourds. Aang, get up. Everybody, hold hands. We can do this. We have to."

Toph felt Aang's hand link with one of hers, Sokka's with the other. Aang began to pull, and she followed obediently, knowing that walking would allow her to feel and be aware of how awesome her toes were even better!

Sokka was more resistant, pulling backward and groaning in amusement.

"Come on Snoozles," the Earthbender admonished. "The elephant mandrill wants us to get going!"

She then told Aang, "I just thought of something. Instead of the Avatar, you should call yourself The Great Baldini." She giggled hysterically.

Aang too, after a shocked moment, burst out laughing. "Where did that come from?"

"No, Aang is not calling himself the Great Baldini!" Katara said from the head of the line.

"It would be kinda cool though," Aang admitted. "If not exactly a dignified title."

"Why are all these moths fluttering around me?" Toph asked.

In the cool of the evening, they plodded on, heads hanging like those of tired ostrich horses. Toph now found herself walking across a plain of paper, which rustled and crackled as they stepped on it. She was terribly thirsty and bone weary, panting from weariness.

To make matters worse, scornful voices were now coming from the paper, telling her she was no good, that she was stupid, that she wasn't half at good at Earthbending as she thought she was, and that her parents hated her, among other slander.

"That's not true...You're all wrong...I'm very smart," she would mutter back in defiance.

Finally, she heard Katara decide, "I think we should all stop for the night."

Toph didn't need to be told twice, and gratefully collapsed to her knees, crushing whatever had been insulting her with a sound like pottery shattering. That would teach them to scorn Toph Bei Fong!

"Is there anymore water?" she requested. "And by the way, did you know that mom spelled upside done is wow? Amazing, huh?"

"This is the last of it," the Waterbender told her. "Everyone can have a little drink."

There was that familiar sloshing sound. Then to her horror, Toph heard Momo spring forward, and a loud splash as the water flew apart!

"_Momo noooo! YOU'VE KILLED US ALL!_" Sokka shrieked in supreme horror and despair.

Equally aghast, Toph herself shrieked like a banshee and leapt on Sokka's back, clutching him like a terrified hogmonkey as she wailed, "Save me Sokka! You're my only hope now!"

"No he hasn't," Katara answered firmly, as Toph's ears picked up a liquid sound coming from the sand.

"Ohhh, right," Sokka realized, more calmly. "Waterbending."

Toph was relived too. After all, who would feed the Sabertoothed-Moose Lions their precious tangerines if she was to die out here? At the same time, it occurred to her how pleasant it felt to be holding Sokka, feeling his wiry frame underneath hers.

"Your voice is so sexy," she giggled. "It sounds like a dog barking."

"Oh no, don't you even _think _about hitting on my brother in your condition," Katara admonished, pulling at her tunic. "He's got enough _sober_ people trying to take advantage of him already."

"But he's so warm!" Toph protested as Sokka chuckled.

"If you don't let go of him, you're not getting any water," Katara admonished. "Besides, you don't know where he's been."

Reluctantly, the Earthbender disengaged herself from the youth and kneeled on the sand expectantly.

She felt the other girl place the silk-covered drinking horn in her hands and gratefully drank. It was delicious!

"Wow! Where'd you get apple juice way out here? Thanks Sugar Queen!" she beamed.

Meanwhile, Katara asked her brother, "Sokka, let me see those things you got from the library."

Suddenly defensive, he shouted "_What? I didn't steal anything!_" drawing back as he did so.

A moment later he turned in Momo's direction and roared at the lemur, "**It was you! You ratted me out!**"

"Ha ha Snoozles, everybody knows about your collection of porno scrolls now!" Toph gleefully exclaimed, laughing like a hyena-mastiff.

"Sokka, I was there." Katara deadpanned before taking his bag and walking about a zhang away to rustle through the documents.

"Did you guys know that straw is warts spelled backwards?" Toph laughingly inquired. "Isn't that the most incredible thing ever?"

"That is incredible," Sokka dopily chuckled. "The platypus bear thinks so too!"

Aang ignored her as he softly, forlornly commented to Katara, "It doesn't matter. None of those will tell us where Appa is."

"No, but we can find out which way Ba Sing Se is. We can use the stars to guide us."

"We are all made of stars," Toph said dreamily. "We are stardust, we are golden..." she softly chanted, her mind opening to the universe like a lotus blossom.

The dreamy, blissful sensation was overpowering now, and exhaustion was tugging her mind down into a black pit.

Adopting a fetal position in the soft cotton, Toph listened to the birds singing around them, thinking to herself, _We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get back to the garden, _before drifting asleep in the Universe's loving embrace.

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><p><strong>Just to let all you know, a zhang is a Chinese measurement equivalent to around 10 feet or close to 3 meters. <strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's Chapter 4. We're getting closer to the end now. As before, I don't own a thing.**

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><p>Toph found herself alone.<p>

Aang, Sokka, Katara-they'd all vanished. Instead of trudging through a desert, she was walking on a path of smooth, polished gems. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of pear blossoms, roses, and other beautiful flowers. Finches, larks, and other birds filled the air with their beautiful songs.

Then, as she walked along, things started to _change_ around the Earthbender. Her sense of smell and the vibrations she was picking up revealed that the landscape's natural features were transforming into gigantic bowls and platters of food!

Ever since she'd first been able to walk, Toph had quickly discovered that one advantage of having parents who were obsessive about sheltering you and saw you as something to be pitied was that they would practically trip over themselves to get you whatever you wanted. Coupled with being the only child in a family of aristocrats, it was hardly surprising that the blind Earthbender ate extremely well.

Now there were all sorts of the desserts she loved slowly swirling and dancing around her. She could smell tofu pudding with coconut milk, dragon's beard candy, and dessert soups like sweet almond soup. Mooncakes. Pineapple cakes. Candied banana fritters. Steamed pears filled with honey and dates. Mango pudding. Sweet potato soup.

She could also smell choice cuts of meat, cooked in savory sauces. Possum chicken. Turkey duck. Gemsbok bull. Moo-sow. Picken. And one of her favorites, gharial hog.

Now all the dishes were competing for her favor, telling her that they were the tastiest of all, to eat from them first, that they would grant her a lifespan of a thousand years if she did so.

Finally, she decided on the candied banana fritters. Airbending herself off the path of gems, she soared to the enormous platter, perching herself on the rim. Promptly, she grabbed one of the sticky pastries and enthusiastically took a big bite out of it.

"Oh, thank you Miss Bei Fong for choosing to partake of me," the banana fritter whimpered in ecstatic gratitude. "It is such an honor!"

In her sleep, Toph made gentle chewing motions, letting the sweet contents bathe her tongue.

A beetle crawling over her ankle made her rise halfway into wakefulness, shattering her drug-induced dream into pieces. She didn't want to let go of it though, and willed the delicacies into appearing a second time. They did, but this time they were farther away and passively perched on the summit of a mountain.

Well, there was nothing for it but to start climbing, and Toph began to Earthbend a suitable shelf of rock off the base that she intended to use to ride up the mountain's face. She was halfway there, gliding through the air on her manipulated outcrop like a bird when she was woken again.

This time, it was all the way. She registered Katara saying to her brother, "Come on, get up. We need to go."

Wearily sitting upright, Toph smacked her dry lips several times before breathing deeply of the dry air.

"What happened to all the desserts?" she asked in disappointed confusion. "Ugh, my mouth just tastes like sand."

She heard Katara go over to Aang, and sensed her kneel down by the Airbender, who said "I'm awake. I couldn't sleep."

"Well, we need to get moving if we want to get out of this sand pit."

"Isn't that a hazard in golf?" Toph asked.

Suddenly she heard Aang perk up, sitting bolt upright as the lizards around him continued to murmur their praises. "Appa!" he shouted in relived delight.

"Appa?" Sokka said in confusion. "But why would Princess Yue need him? She's the moooonnn, she flies by herself!"

"Yay, it's Appa!" Toph also shouted happily. "And are the Flutter Ponies with him too?"

After a long moment, Katara sighed, saying "It's just a cloud. Wait, a cloud!"

She then asked Aang to go to the cloud and Waterbend the moisture into her water pouch. Snatching it away from her, he shot up into the air, where Toph could dimly hear him whip back and forth several times.

She was only casually listening though. After all, she was enjoying a blissful soak in a great tub of warm raspberry custard at the moment.

The Earthbender was then jolted out of her pleasant delusion by Aang yelling "_I'm sorry okay! _It's a desert cloud, I did all I could! _What's anyone else doing? What are you doing?_" he snarled at Katara, whipping his staff towards her, making the Waterbender jerk back.

A second later, it was Toph's turn to shy back as the Avatar then whipped his staff at her and Sokka, judgmentally growling, "I know _you_ two have done nothing but get high as kites and be in la-la land all day!"

"I'm trying to keep everyone together," Katara submissively half-whispered.

"Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La-la, Po," Toph softly sang.

"Let's just get moving. We need to head in this direction," Katara said as she turned and began to walk off.

The Earthbender followed. She realized that being marooned in the desert like this was practically the funniest thing ever, and she began giggling uncontrollably as they walked among the dunes.

Her amusement was suddenly cut short when her right foot smashed into something protruding from the sea of sand, sending a sheeting agony up her leg and throwing her to the ground, hard.

"Ow! Crud!" she yelped in rage and pain, sitting upright and clutching her throbbing foot. "I am so sick of not feeling where I'm going, and how everything smells like cat pee! And why was Indiana Jones so dumb to bury a boat out in the middle of the desert where the badger-moles could steal it?"

"A boat? You sure about that Toph?" Katara asked as she came over.

"That's what both the vibrations from it and the lizards are saying. Believe me, I kicked it hard enough," Toph crossly replied. She hoped she hadn't broken anything. Otherwise the cat-owls would have to operate on her foot, and that was never fun.

Thankfully, everything seemed okay, and she stood up again.

Aang promptly airbended the sand away in a controlled tornado, exposing the boat.

"It's one of the gliders the Sandbenders use," Katara proclaimed in amazement as she leapt onto it. "And look! There's a compass on it!" she said joyfully. "I bet it can point us out of here!"

"Oh come on Sugar Queen, this isn't a glider," Toph said scornfully.

"Not a glider! Of course it is!"

"No, it's a sleigh. Santa Claus's sleigh," the Earthbender declared.

There was a bemused, uncertain silence.

"Oh, don't you people know who Santa Claus is?" Toph grumbled in frustration. "He's this big fat old man who lives at the North Pole and has a full white beard! He wears a suit made of red cloth with white trim and rides around the world once a year on a flying sleigh pulled by flying magic reindeer to give out presents to children! And we just found where he keeps his sleigh!"

Aang and Katara, for the span of at least a couple minutes, were completely speechless. Toph figured they were just as stunned to realize they'd found Santa's sleigh as she was. This was so cool!

Finally, Aang turned back to Katara, voice uneasy as he said, "This is bad. Really bad. We've _got _to get Toph to medical help as soon as we can Katara. I'm scared that her mind's gone!"

"I am too Aang, but first we've got to get out of this desert. I'll summon the best healer in Ba Sing Se when we do, believe me. And maybe it'll pass in time anyhow. But for now, you airbend a breeze so we can sail it. We're going to make it, and that's the most important thing!"

From behind her, Toph heard Sokka break into thin, wiry laughter.

"Did you hear that Sokka?" she told him enthusiastically. "We're gonna see Santa at the North Pole!"

"May the wind god help you," she heard Aang say as the Airbender climbed to the sleigh's front and took up position.

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><p><strong>As always, reviews are much appreciated.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

_"By now, I'm weak in some pain and my body's feeling drained (I'm on acid - acid)_  
><em>Comin' down upon my trip and my skin's about to rip (I'm on acid - acid)<em>  
><em>I'll probably sleep till Thursday and it's only Sunday (I'm on acid - acid)<em>  
><em>Wakin' up on that Thursday to have another Saturday (I'm on acid - acid)"<em>

Acid, Lil' Wyte, 2004.

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><p>Even if affected by a mind-altering substance, Toph still knew her way around a large solid object, and climbed onto the sleigh as well, taking up a seat on the left side with her legs crossed. They felt so warm!<p>

Aang shot a great burst of air into the slack sail, expanding it, then another one, and they were off.

The speed, the wind in her face, the feeling of something solid underneath her was exciting and invigorating. And the canyon crawlers would never be able to catch them now!

Her bangs streaming, the Earthbender grinned the charmingly witless grin of a dog sticking its head out a car's window as they sped across the snow. She felt in a state of bliss.

From his perch behind Katara, she heard Sokka slur, "WOW. The stars are so _pretty_. It's like the sky's filled with diamonds!"

The runners on the sleigh, as they tore across the desert, sang a tune on the sand, and Toph sang along with them.

"_Lucy in the sky with diamonds/ Lucy in the sky with diamonds/ Lucy in the sky with diamonds.../ Ah-aahh!_"

"You blockhead!" Sokka said to nobody in particular.

Toph wiggled her twenty-two toes. How could so _many_ fit on each foot?

After a time, the blind Earthbender felt her mind begin to subside and _stabilize_, for lack of better terms. Her most important sense, the deep awareness of the solid surfaces she stood upon and of the vibrations transmitted through them, was the first to clear, to become reliable once more.

Now there was no doubt that she was sitting on a wooden object, that it was a true glider, and that they were zooming across the sand.

Other senses remained more fickle.

When a bemused Katara commented, "The needle on this compass doesn't seem to be pointing north, according to my charts," her voice sounded like bees buzzing. She felt something, with claws and fur, touch her neck an instant later.

Spooked, she slapped at it, brushing the creature away.

"Take it easy little lady," Sokka dopily assured his sister. "I'm sure the Sand folks who built this baby know how to get around here."

As another sign that she was coming back to reality, Toph felt Katara shift her body and her annoyed, tense demeanor as she glared at her brother for a moment.

The Waterbender gasped then, declaring in excitement, "_That's _what the compass is pointing to! That giant rock, it must be the magnetic center of the desert!"

Hearing those words was like hearing the voice of an old friend for the first time in years for Toph Bei Fong, and a profound, excited joy, made all the purer by the remains of the cactus juice surged through her.

"A rock? Yes!" she declared, pumping her fist. "Let's go!"

"Welcome back Toph!" Katara smiled happily.

"Welcome back?" Toph replied in confusion. "I never even went anywhere, Sugar Queen!"

"Never mind that for now," Katara dismissed. "We're going to get you back on stable earth in no time, and maybe we can find water there too!"

"Maybe we can find some Sandbenders," Aang added. His voice was a low, husky growl, and Toph could feel the roiling vibrations of his rage and hatred.

"Will there be soup?" she hopefully asked.

"I don't exactly think so Toph," Katara replied thinly.

As Aang sailed the glider over the last few miles of sand, and the sun began to rise, the Earthbender felt herself become increasingly lucid, free of the cactus juice's witchcraft.

But there was still a price for her body to pay. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, and all her limbs felt numb. Her muscles were tense as taut ropes, to the point where she honestly feared her skin was going to bloodily split open.

She felt hot as well, and her mouth was dry, although that could've just as well been from the desert conditions too.

When Aang stopped the glider at the base of the rock, the Earthbender was more than happy to climb the reassuring presence of the monolith in hopes of finding water and shade at its summit.

In spite of her numb body and whip-tense muscles, sensing and making her way up a natural path was not all that demanding of a task. And Katara patiently helped lead her along whenever it was needed.

When she reached what she knew was the top of the mesa, feeling like a caged sparrakeet released to the freedom of the sky, the invigorating morning wind in her hair and lungs, she gratefully sighed and collapsed backward on the stone, making a rock angel as she exclaimed, "Ahh, finally. Solid ground! And the world actually makes sense again! But remind me to punch you later Snoozles," she added as she got up.

As they entered the refreshing coolness of the cave, the Watertribe youth emitted a drawn-out _wooofff_ before confirming he was at the same point on his ill-thought "journey" as she was. "I think my head is finally starting to clear out the cactus juice."

"Good, then you'll be nice and aware when I beat you up for offering me something that messed up my head," Toph grumbled.

"And look!" he declared excitedly before sloppily ingesting a handful of something that immediately made him gag in disgust, shouting "Ugh! Tastes like rotten penguin meat! Uhh, I feel woozy."

Astonished, Katara stomped up to him, brusquely snapping, "You and Toph have been hallucinating on cactus juice all day, and then you just lick something you find stuck to the wall of a cave?"

"Yeah Snoozles, at least _I_ have the capacity to learn my lesson about being gullible," Toph laughed.

"I have a natural curiosity," Sokka replied.

"Ugh. Remind me not to go along with it ever again," she said dryly, even as she gently braced herself against the stone wall with her hand, picking up on the nature of the cave.

Interesting. She'd been in badger-mole caves plenty of times before of course, and this one felt fairly similar to those.

"Hey guys, I don't think this is a normal cave," she informed them. "This was carved by something."

"Yeah," Aang agreed. "Look at the shape."

As he spoke, Toph very lightly stomped her foot like a nervous fox-antelope doe, in order to get a wider picture of their surroundings. With a shock, she realized they were in something like a honeycomb.

And then, unsure if it was the work of the cactus juice or not, she felt a buzzing.

Deciding discretion should rule the day, she exclaimed, "There's something buzzing in here. Something that's coming for us!"

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><p>As they hurriedly trotted down the natural path, the awful buzzing of the wasp creatures pounding at her eardrums, Toph felt Katara place both hands on her shoulders and spin her to face out towards the desert, commanding, "Toph, shoot a rock right there."<p>

After a moment she said "Fire!" and the Earthbender immediately extracted a boulder from the mesa, sending it whizzing through the air to smash into the buzzard wasp, producing the unnatural sound of a plate smashing.

"Yeah! You got it!" Sokka cheered. "She got it, right?"

"Yes," his sister confirmed. "Now let's move."

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><p><strong>Next chapter will be the last one. Thanks for the reviews!<strong>


	6. Epilouge

**Well, here we are. This is the sixth and last chapter concerning the amusing effects of cactus juice on Toph. I hope you all enjoyed reading this humorous fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. Last but not least, thanks for the reviews!**

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><p>"You tell me where he is <strong>NOW!<strong>" Aang shouted in all-encompassing fury, and Toph felt another hurricane gust of wind leap out from him to smash another sandglider like it was just a porcelain vase.

"_What did you __do__?" _the appalled Sandbender chief half-moaned to his son.

"It wasn't me!" Gashiun cringingly denied.

But Toph knew far better.

"You said to put a muzzle on him!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger in his direction.

Then hell broke loose.

"_You __**muzzled **__Appa?_" Aang shouted in disbelieving, welling rage.

Suddenly the Earthbender felt something change about Aang in a terrible new way, felt him become gripped by something profoundly, incomprehensibly ancient and powerful and savage and grim and as uncontrollable as a wounded sabertooth moose-lion or boarcupine.

He whipped his staff around him with the speed of an arrow leaving a bow, and Toph felt/heard another glider shatter, split into two. It sounded like a great tree being blown apart by lighting.

"I'm sorry!" Gashiun desperately pleaded, cringing in the abject terror of a moo-sow about to be slain by a platypus bear. "I didn't know it belonged to the Avatar!"

Toph didn't consider herself to be a coward in any way or form. She'd won half a dozen Earthbending tournaments against experienced men three times her age. Even if, spirits forbid, she somehow, someday, ever found herself in a situation where she couldn't earthbend, she was still quite stocky and muscular. Any adversary who seized her in that scenario might get away with it, but not without paying the price for it first! And she could still use her senses of hearing and touch to get a pretty good idea of where an attack was coming from, which with luck, would allow her to evade it.

And while she respected Aang's power as the Avatar, she'd always found Twinkletoes to be more goofy then scary.

But now it was her turn to cringe for once as Aang demanded "_Tell me where Appa is!_" in a demonic, spine-chilling, echoing voice that seemed composed of many ancient, animal growls melded into one.

"I traded him...to some merchants," Gashiun stammered in the same abject terror the Earthbender felt. "He's probably in Ba Sing Se by now. They were going to sell him there."

Clearly he expected to die. Toph half-expected to accompany Gashiun herself as she sightlessly goggled, mouth slack with shock and horror, her insides twisting like worms. Now her entire body felt numb. Aang was actually capable of _this?_"

"Please!" the Sandbender screeched for mercy. "We'll escort you out of the desert. We'll help you however we can!" he gasped, a panicked attempt at appeasement as a gaping Toph felt herself start to be violently lashed by swarms of sand grains, a tornado born of Aang's supervolcanic rage.

Suddenly she heard Sokka demand from just behind her, "Just get out of here! Run!" grasping her left forearm and tugging her behind him as she promptly obeyed.

She was in the astonishing position of having to actually run for her life from Aang, and she shouted over the roar of the wind to Sokka, "Am I hallucinating this too? Tell me I am!"

"No," Sokka shouted back in terror, "you aren't! And believe me, if you value your life _at all_, you never, _never_ want to be around Aang when he gets like this!"

Then they could only cower against each other like a pair of rainbow pheasants hiding from a hunter's arrows as the hurricane of sand, charged with static electricity, overtook them, forcing them to shield their faces. And Toph was not ashamed to have Sokka there to hide behind.

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><p>Toph picked some earwax out of her right ear, flicked it into the wind, and then calmly relaxed against Katara's right side as the Sand Sailor sped toward the western edge of the Si Wong Desert.<p>

Aang was standing at the front of the glider, lashing the sail with his airbending as the Sandbender chief, Ganzorig, occasionally directed him to make a slight turn or let them know how far they'd traveled.

After the astonishing events at the base of the mesa had run their course, Ganzorig and another sandbender, with much trepidation and earnest apologies, had brought them to the tribe's camp on the remaining glider.

The tribe's women and children had been very surprised to see strangers arrive. They were even more surprised and more than a little edgy to learn that not only was a still-fuming Aang the Avatar himself, but that their tribe had done something that had really, really gotten him upset.

Aang had assured the camp's women and any men who'd been at camp the whole time that he felt a lot better now, and besides, it wasn't _them_ he was angry with. Still, the other members of the tribe could hardly have been hastier when it came to finding each one of them a comfortable place to rest in one of their tents and providing them with all the precious water and milk from their gecko-goats they desired.

Toph had been more than happy to accept the fluids and then have a meal of peppered roast gecko-goat before dozing in the cool shade the wool tent provided. Sheltered from the heat of the desert day, her wiry body, drained and numb from the aftereffects of the cactus juice, from the shock and horror at experiencing Aang going into the Avatar state for the first time, chronic dehydration, and just plain weariness, was able to regain its strength.

When she'd awoken, the other Sandbenders who'd been left behind at the mesa had been picked up and brought back, and were staying as far away from Aang as they could. It made her chuckle inside to sense how much food, water, and other supplies they'd helped load up for them on the glider that would take them out of here.

The chief's daughter, Sarangerel, had chosen to go with them, her father explaining that she wanted to have the honor of helping see the Avatar on his way. Toph was pretty sure though that Sarangerel was also there as a precaution, to give Aang pause if his rage began to spiral out of control again at any time.

Ganzorig had told them his name meant "courage of steel." Yet if anyone deserved that name it was Katara, Toph thought, turning towards the Waterbender in amazement for the fifteenth time.

She'd actually _grabbed on_ to Aang's arm while he was a literal cyclone of fury and destruction, the most powerful being on the globe, and clasped him to her, comforting him! She easily could've been hurt or killed.

From the other side of the glider, she heard Sokka ask Sarangerel, "Can I have a sip of water? This wind really dries out your mouth!"

"Here you are," the Sandbender maiden replied as she gave Sokka the gecko-goat skin pouch.

Toph heard Sokka swallow twice, sigh happily, then give the canteen back before saying, "I guess if there's any moral to take home from this adventure, it's not to drink water from just anywhere, no matter how thirsty you are or how good it looks."

"Tell me about it Snoozles," the Earthbender dryly grumbled. "And don't blindly do what other people are doing...especially people like you," she pointedly added.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know it was a mind-altering substance?" Sokka protested.

"Well it still wasn't very bright," his sister snorted. "Anyhow, I hope both of you learned a lesson from that."

"I don't know if Snoozles is capable of learning his lesson about anything-"

"Hey!"

"-But I definitely did."

"I just hope I didn't make myself look like too much of an idiot," Toph sighed in embarrassment as she went on, putting her head in her hands. "Tell it to me straight Sweetness, how bad was I?"

She heard Katara try to force back chuckles and smirks before saying, "Well, I wouldn't say you were an idiot while you were on the cactus juice, but you did do a lot of weird things."

"I remember although I was walking on sand, and a part of me _knew_ I was always on sand, I felt like my feel were on all sorts of different surfaces," Toph laughed, shaking her head wryly. "Sometimes it felt like I was walking on marble, sometimes on burlap, sometimes on paper scrolls, and sometimes on feathers! It was crazy but kind of cool at the same time," she chuckled.

Katara laughed as well. "You also sang a lot of very weird songs that made no sense at all. I've never heard anything like them."

"Seriously?" Toph asked in amazement. "What were they like?"

"Well," Katara replied, shrugging her shoulders, "they just made no sense. The lyrics were weird, the tunes were crazy, even some of the words were unrecognizable...it's like you heard them from another world Toph."

"Well that's sure creepy."

After thinking for a moment, Katara then added, "There was one song you sang last night though, just before you fell asleep after we stopped, that was actually very pretty."

"How did it go?" Toph grinned wryly.

"I think it was, 'We are stardust, we are golden.' Do you remember it at all?"

"Huh, that is quite pretty Sugar Queen," Toph agreed as she prodded her memory. It was hard to separate and distinguish exactly what had gone on during that confused time.

And then, flashing into her mind like the sensation of touching gold, she found the memory!

"Yeah, now I remember!" she declared in excitement. "And I only sang a bit of the whole song. You're right, it _was_ weird!"

"Could you sing it now?" Sokka asked.

"No way Snoozles," Toph snapped, crossing her arms and flicking them apart. "I'm not going to sing for anybody. Especially not some crazy song I heard in a cactus juice-induced hallucination!"

"Oh, we've heard plenty of those in our camps," Sarangerel dismissively assured her. "And if what Katara said is correct, yours actually sounds far better than most!"

"I'm NOT going to embarrass myself by singing," Toph grunted, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"Oh, don't say that about yourself Toph," Katara gently admonished. "I bet you have a beautiful singing voice."

"Yeah, and don't be embarrassed about doing it at all," Sokka added. "Why, I've heard that General Iroh himself is an excellent singer. Heck, so are many other members of the Fire Nation."

"Okay, I'll sing the crazy song," Toph sighed in defeat. "Just don't make fun of me."

"We would _never _make fun of you Toph," Katara sincerely assured her.

"Alright, here goes. _I came upon a child of God/ __He was walking along the road/ And I asked him, 'Tell where are you going?'/ This he told me/ Said, 'I¹m going down to Yasgur's Farm/ Gonna join in a rock and roll band/ Got to get back to the land and set my soul free.'  
>We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon,<br>And we got to get ourselves back to the garden..._"

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><p><strong>The song Toph sings at the end is "Woodstock," by Joni Mitchell. Other songs mentioned referenced in this fanfic are "We Are All Made Of Stars," by Moby, "Dragula," by Rob Zombie, "Happy Happy Joy Joy," from Ren and Stimpy, and both "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," and "I Am The Walrus," are of course, by that immortal quartet, The Beatles!<strong>

**Please practice the two Rs!**


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